Tagged: 8½

Jeanne (Anne Parillaud) is a French director shooting a film in Portugal. Her films seem to be strikingly similar to those of French auteur Catherine Breillat. She even likes to cast the same actress (Roxane Mesquida) and is interested in the same themes. Her newest movie is about a young woman’s first sexual experiences with a douchebag who’s just trying to get into her pants (Grégoire Colin). Jeanne is having a hard time shooting the film as her actors don’t seem to be comfortable with the sex scenes. Especially her lead actor is proving to be annoying and vain. But at the end of the day art must prevail (with or without fake penises). Continue reading →

Wow, that doesn’t sound like an ambitious title at all. It’s actually more like “ten of my favorite opening/title sequencesthat I can thing of right now in chronological order”, but that’s not really a catchy title. During the last couple days, after watching Claire Denis’ Beau Travail, I’ve been thinking about my favorite movie endings. Since those are difficult to discuss without spoilers, I thought I’d take a moment to mention a few of my favorite beginnings. I am going to post a clip for every movie I mention, unfortunately some of those are in really low quality, but it’s more “just in case” anyway. Continue reading →

If you love cinema at all chances are Federico Fellini’s 8½is one of your favorite films, it sure is one of my personal favorites. Today Criterion posted a collection of international posters, brochures and program covers. Some of these are pretty wacky and out there and don’t represent the film’s essence quite well, although they might be aesthetically good-looking; doesn’t that remind you of the Mondo posters? Anyways, the French press book cover (the red one, to be clear) is gorgeous, I also really like the Japanese brochure (it’s the one with the purple writing). What are some of your favorites?

This week Criterion asked about our favorite title designs on Facebook. After thinking about it and reading other people’s responses and trying to remember if my favorite films had a title card at all I narrowed it down to ten I think are pretty awesome. Some filmmakers consistently think their title sequences through like Sofia Coppola, Lars von Trier or Sono Sion, so I just picked one of theirs, but I’m not even sure it’s their best, but that’s what I was able to find on the good ole internet. At this point I’d also like to mention Woody Allen who has consistently kept same identical opening titles for his entire career, I won’t count him in this list, but y’all know his signature font, so..

These are my favorite title cards in chronological order, because I’m not good at ranking stuff.

Mine is pretty much a no-brainer, since Federico Fellini my favorite director.

This is a shot from his masterpiece, his 1963 film 8½. To me this is one of the most beautifully composed visuals of all time. It’s just so incredibly haunting and when viewed in the context of the movie it gives me an eerie sense of loss and bewilderment. I almost feel suspended in mid-air myself, like in a dream.